Johnson dodges on government shutdown if spending bill fails
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Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team spent the weekend trying to shore up support for his short-term government funding plan. But it is still expected to fail when it comes to the floor on Wednesday.
If it fails, it will highlight publicly what some House Republicans have been saying privately for days: They can’t pass any government funding bill on their own and will ultimately need to team up with Democrats to pass a short-term measure, likely into December.
One GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, questioned how Johnson’s plan could get 218 votes, noting it would be rejected by the Senate anyway and predicting that Congress will “wind up where everybody suspects we wind up”: with a short-term funding bill into December.
But how close is the House GOP conference to accepting that legislative reality? The lawmaker quipped: “I think if you’ve got psychedelics and a bottle of tequila you might get closer.”
As of late last week, roughly 10 GOP members were poised to vote no on Johnson’s spending bill that pairs funding the government through March 28 to a Republican proposal requiring proof of citizenship in order to vote. There are also several other on-the-fence GOP lawmakers, suggesting opposition could grow when the bill comes to the floor.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), in a lengthy X post this week, accused Johnson of “leading a fake fight,” and that his current government funding plan is “already DOA this week.”
“Speaker Johnson needs to go to the Democrats, who he has worked with the entire time, to get the votes he needs to do what he is already planning to do,” wrote Greene, who has vowed to oppose the bill.
House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) also said he is still a “no” on the bill.
Some Republicans are hoping that once the bill fails on the floor Wednesday, it will force Johnson and the rest of the conference to turn to a backup plan. Johnson punted a vote on the bill last week, but some Republicans believe it needs to come to the floor and fail to show its supporters they don’t have the votes.
Johnson, however, told reporters that he wasn’t currently contemplating a Plan B and wasn’t “having any alternative conversations. That’s the play.”
Johnson gave no indication during a closed-door leadership meeting on Tuesday that he was contemplating alternatives, two people familiar with the meeting said. And Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said during the same meeting that he had flipped some members, one of them added.
Emmer told POLITICO after the meeting that “we’ve moved some people.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are preparing to go on offense against Republicans for bringing the government to the brink of a shutdown just weeks before the election. In private meetings this week, Democratic aides have begun crafting their message: Republicans are choosing Project 2025 — the controversial policy plans drafted by conservative think-tanks and Trump allies — over keeping the government open, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) was tapped on Tuesday night to become the next leader of the Freedom Caucus, after the ultra-conservative group was forced to pick a new leader in the wake of the previous chair’s primary loss.
The Freedom Caucus had narrowed it down to Harris or Rep. Andy Biggs — a decision first reported by POLITICO last week. But members of the group were informed Tuesday night, shortly before they were scheduled to convene to pick their next leader, that Biggs had bowed out of the race, five Republicans familiar with the matter confirmed.
That cleared the way for the group to tap Harris to succeed Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) as chair, after the Virginia Republican formally left the post last week following a primary defeat that became official last month. He was ousted by a challenger who was supported by former President Donald Trump and some fellow Republicans inside the conference. Harris was named as chair by acclimation during the group’s Tuesday night meeting, one of the Republicans said.
Harris will serve through the end of 2024 — meaning the group will have two leadership elections in a matter of months. There has been talk of letting whoever won the election this week take over the rest of Good’s term that runs through 2025. Instead, the group is effectively punting a longer-term decision on leadership until after the presidential election. Harris at that point could run for the longer term with one member predicting that it would be a “given” that he would get it.
Those who wanted Harris, an appropriator, viewed him as a new path forward for a caucus that has remained largely divided over which procedural tactics to use for leverage and when to use them.
Harris had also previously expressed interest in leading the group last year, but the top spot ultimately went to Good. While much of the public focus has been on Biggs’ push for chair in recent weeks, Harris has been talking to members of the group about his interest, one person familiar with the outreach said.
Meanwhile, Biggs would have normally been termed out for the role under the group’s rules, Good’s early resignation created a loophole for the chair emeritus. And even by late last week, the group’s leadership board had narrowed their list down to the two conservative Andys, POLITICO first reported. Other Republicans have also been floated as names for when the group holds its next full election, including Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.).
Some of the members viewed Biggs, who was among eight Republicans who voted to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as a more status-quo choice for leader. Members of the group had also floated him, as well as former Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) as placeholders to get the group through the November election and the current funding fights.
Good’s defeat also marked an embarrassing moment for the rebel-heavy group, which cares about its brand as well as perceptions about its strength. Naming a new leader allows them to begin to move on, including putting their focus on the upcoming spending fights.
Good lost to state Sen. John McGuire (R-Va.), a former Navy SEAL who got the backing of McCarthy allies as well as Trump, who took issue with Good backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis early in the presidential primary. Good’s district leans Republican, and McGuire is heavily favored to win the general election in November.
Good, meanwhile, is expected to remain a member of both the Freedom Caucus and in the House until the end of his term.
The House passed an emergency spending bill Tuesday night to boost veterans funding by almost $2.9 billion amid Biden administration warnings that VA benefits are at risk this month.
While that multi-billion-dollar infusion has bipartisan support, a follow-on tranche could be harder fought. The Department of Veterans Affairs expects a much larger shortfall over the next year, and Republicans aren’t agreeing upfront to filling the funding gap as they prepare to play hardball over government spending totals after Election Day.
Republicans blame the VA’s funding gap on budget mismanagement by the Biden administration, while also acknowledging that the VA has been providing health care and disability benefits to more veterans since Congress cleared a bill in 2022 to expand services to those exposed to toxic substances.
“But this isn’t smoke and mirrors. There are more veterans, there are more benefits. These are good things,” said Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), the bill’s sponsor. “All we’re asking for is the president’s budget request and the congressional processes reflect the higher demands and thus the higher dollar values.”
Broader fight: Beyond the almost $2.9 billion the House backed Tuesday by voice vote, the Biden administration estimates a shortfall of nearly $12 billion in veterans services through next fall.
The extra sum could become a conflict point this month as congressional leaders negotiate a bipartisan stopgap funding bill to keep government agencies funded beyond Oct. 1. And if the shortfall isn’t remedied in that patch, it’s expected to factor into negotiations later this year when congressional leaders haggle over the “topline” funding levels that set the framework for final government funding bills.
That’s because VA funding typically falls under the non-defense bucket Democrats will be trying to increase, as Republican leaders argue for a higher share on the defense side of the ledger. Counting extra VA money under the domestic total would benefit GOP negotiators, while breaking it out as emergency cash would likely afford Democrats more leverage in scoring other non-defense funding.
What’s next: Senate leaders are expected to fast-track passage of the VA patch to clear the measure for President Joe Biden’s signature in the next few days. The Biden administration told lawmakers in July that the money is needed to ensure payments aren’t missed on Oct. 1.
Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-Mont.) reelection was already difficult. It just got a little harder.
The Montana state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling Tuesday that Green Party candidate Robert Barb can remain on the ballot for this fall’s Senate race, a blow to state Democrats who had fervently tried to block him out of fear he would pull votes away from the highly vulnerable Tester.
Of the incumbents running for reelection, Tester is locked in the most difficult race in a state that Donald Trump won handily in 2020. He faces Republican Tim Sheehy and two third-party candidates, Barb and a Libertarian.
Barb replaced the original Green Party nominee after the primary winner dropped out of the race. The state Democratic Party argued that proper procedure was not followed, and that Barb should be booted from the ballot. Their efforts clearly underscored the threat they believe Barb could pose to Tester.
There’s some evidence that’s the case. A recent AARP-commissioned poll found that Sheehy led Tester by 6 points in a head-to-head ballot but by 8 points when the Green and Libertarian nominees were included. (Though they tested Michael Downey, the initial Green Party nominee, in that poll.)
In their lawsuit, the state Democratic Party said that a candidate swap would force them “to divert staff time and resources to developing new messaging strategies that appeal to voters choosing between the Democratic and Green Party candidates.”
There was no Green Party candidate on the ballot in Tester’s 2018 race, when he won by 3.5 points. But there was a Libertarian candidate on the ballot who drew 2.9 percent of the vote.
NEW YORK — One New York House Republican has spread a viral but false claim about migrants eating pets. His neighbor, another vulnerable GOP freshman, has rejected it.
Now, both want to move on — but Donald Trump, JD Vance and mountains of memes stand in their way.
New York Rep. Marc Molinaro last week gave oxygen to the debunked rumor that Haitian newcomers to Springfield, Ohio, abduct and eat cats and dogs — posting it to X, Instagram and Facebook as one of a multitude of attacks meant to challenge his Democratic rival’s commitment to border security.
Two congressional districts to the south, Rep. Mike Lawler, whose constituency includes a sizable Haitian American population, released a statement urging his fellow Republicans to refrain from circulating unsubstantiated rumors. It was attributed to a spokesperson and blamed no one by name.
Both staked out their positions before the presidential debate, but neither can escape it now that Trump has thrust the racist trope into the national spotlight by musing about it onstage. His running mate, Vance, continues to defend it, telling CNN he’s been able to “create” a media focus on how immigration can overwhelm communities. And MAGA social media accounts are still circulating AI-generated art of Trump rescuing and embracing kittens and ducks.
There have been real-world implications for Springfield, including bomb threats that have closed schools and disrupted life there.
Molinaro and Lawler are battling for reelection in two of the country’s most competitive House races — and two of the six in New York that will help determine which party controls the narrowly divided chamber next year. Their divergent approaches reflect the challenging landscape that swing-district Republicans across the country must now navigate as Trump and Vance push the false narrative. The differences in their handling of the claim also speak to some of the contrasts in their campaigns.
Lawler is facing a Black challenger in former Rep. Mondaire Jones. And he’s confronting the reality that some of his Haitian American constituents believe Trump and Vance are targeting them simply because they’re Black immigrants.
“We didn’t come to the United States looking for racist people to keep insulting us,” said Renold Julien, the leader of a community center aiding Haitians in Lawler’s district. “We come here to make a living. We come here because we have been forced out of our country.”
The painful and dangerous claim has spread like wildfire via TikTok, other social media memes and audio remixes thanks to Trump’s debate remarks.
“In Springfield, they’re eating dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats,” Trump told the voting public as Vice President Kamala Harris shook her head incredulously at their recent debate.
Earlier that day, Molinaro posted a screenshot from Springfield featuring a Black man holding a goose and an accompanying message about a killed cat. He stood firmly by it on X after his Democratic opponent, Josh Riley, demanded he apologize.
In an interview, Molinaro then turned every question about his posts into a volley of attacks alleging Riley would surrender the southern border to criminals.
When pressed by POLITICO about it, the vulnerable Republican argued the Springfield claim is based in some truth about some Black immigrant cultures.
“Google Manlius,” Molinaro said, a reference to a popular swan that, according to police, was stolen, killed and eaten last year. “Listen, there are desperate people in the world who were allowed into this country with no capacity to support themselves.”
While his line of rhetoric has been challenged as racist, Molinaro’s focus on the broader migrant issue is not surprising. In the mid-Hudson Valley’s heated rematch, border security has emerged as a central theme.
Riley has hit Molinaro for his opposition to the bipartisan border bill, which died in the Senate — in large part due to Trump’s opposition to it. Molinaro has in turn attacked Riley’s work as a Senate attorney challenging Trump’s border policy. And both have blasted President Joe Biden and spotlighted migrant crime.
In an interview with POLITICO, Riley was similarly intent on focusing on the border, arguing he would work toward a solution and saying Molinaro is lying about his record.
“It’s beneath the office to pedal and traffic in dangerous and racist conspiracy theories,” the Democrat said. “We have real, big, serious challenges that we need to solve.”
Trump and Vance’s continued promotion of the pet-eating claim is harder to pivot away from in Lawler’s lower Hudson Valley district, where support from Haitian New Yorkers could mean the difference between winning and losing in what’s expected to be a tight race.
After Molinaro’s posts, but before the debate, Lawler’s office issued a mild rebuke — and perhaps the only one from a House Republican.
“He encourages his colleagues to exercise great restraint when spreading unfounded theories and claims based off of posts on Facebook,” Lawler’s spokesperson Nate Soule said in a statement.
Lawler declined POLITICO’s request for an interview. His campaign said his statement was not aimed at Molinaro.
Jones, meanwhile, told POLITICO that the Springfield claim is “gross” and “racist.”
“It’s sadly par for the course in Republican politics,” he said in an interview.
It’s also offensive to Haitian Americans in the district, “a community that Mike Lawler purports to be trying to make inroads in — for political purposes anyway,” Jones said.
Jones hosted a news conference Tuesday with leaders of Haitian descent to condemn Republican rhetoric.
Julien, the director of the Konbit Neg Lakay community center, told POLITICO he reached out and initiated the event because he had not heard from officials of either party since the Springfield claim went viral.
“It is a reminder that politically, Haitians in the United States, we don’t really have a lot of friends,” Julien said. “But it is not about Republican or Democrat, the thing is you’re talking about humanity.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that House Republicans are “looking at” potentially adding new funding for the Secret Service into a short-term funding bill — though he appeared skeptical that more money is the solution for the agency.
“We’re looking at that. I think it’s a matter of manpower allocation. We don’t want to just throw more money at a broken system. We’re looking at all aspects of it, and we’ll make the right determination,” Johnson told reporters when asked if he thought there was a need to include more Secret Service funding in the stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR.
Johnson’s comments come in the wake of an apparent second attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, which has fueled new questions from lawmakers about the agency.
Though House Republicans have been more complimentary of the agents on the ground on Sunday, they’re still critical of leadership at the Department of Homeland Security and have questions about how the Secret Service is allocating resources.
The funding discussion comes as Congress is facing an Oct. 1 deadline to avoid a government shutdown. Johnson will force a Wednesday vote on legislation to fund the government through March 28, paired with GOP legislation requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.
But that measure is not expected to pass, with Republicans on both sides of the aisle waiting to see what Johnson’s Plan B will be. There’s a growing recognition among House Republicans that they will likely end up passing a short-term government funding bill into December without the so-called SAVE Act attached.
Senate appropriators are in talks with the Secret Service about its need for additional resources. But it’s unclear if it will get attached to this month’s short-term funding bill. Separate from more funding, they are also floating giving the agency more spending flexibility in the eventual CR.
Speaker Mike Johnson is aiming to bring his short-term spending plan to the House floor for a vote Wednesday, despite growing signs the measure lacks GOP support needed to pass.
The GOP leader previously pulled the stopgap funding coupled with the SAVE Act — GOP legislation that requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections — after it became clear Republican opposition could tank the vote. Democrats are largely opposed to the plan, which would fund the government through March 28.
Johnson announced the planned vote in a statement Tuesday, saying, “Congress has an immediate obligation to do two things: responsibly fund the federal government and ensure the security of our elections.”
Last week, the speaker said he and his leadership team would continue to work with the Republicans who opposed the plan over the weekend and “build consensus.” At least 10 Republican members publicly stated their opposition, and even more said they were undecided. The pushback comes from different corners of the conference, including conservatives who oppose short-term spending bills generally and defense hawks who have concerns about the 6-month timeline of the continuing resolution, or CR.
Johnson’s decision to push forward with his plan also comes after he met with former President Donald Trump over the weekend. Trump, on his social media platform Truth Social, previously said, “If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION.”
Johnson has already heard concerns from vulnerable Republicans that a government shutdown would threaten their reelection prospects. The broader leadership implications: A loss of a House GOP majority if the battleground Republicans don’t pull through in November, which could have major consequences for Johnson’s own survival as party leader.
Johnson has dismissed the idea of a shutdown, and centrists have also publicly stated it will not happen. Conservatives, however, have said Johnson has made clear this is his one-and-only plan and that he intends to fight for it.
Several back-up options are being floated by GOP members should the vote Wednesday fail. But those plans also likely lack the votes to pass. Instead, a growing swath of the GOP conference is acknowledging they will likely end up with a relatively clean funding bill into December.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
The toxic political climate and a complex web of threats — punctuated by Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump — is putting an extraordinary strain on the national security officials tasked with safeguarding American democracy.
Security experts say sharp polarization and increasingly hateful political rhetoric — fanned by foreign adversaries and supercharged by social media — have combined to test the nation’s ability to protect its candidates and institutions.
“The 2024 presidential election is taking place at a time when the U.S. is facing the most complex, dynamic, and dangerous threat environment I’ve experienced in the 40-plus years that I’ve been working in law enforcement, homeland security, and national security,” said John Cohen, a former senior Homeland Security intelligence and counterterrorism official.
“We’re facing cyber, physical, and other threats by foreign and domestic threat actors, and what’s different today is how they have fully embraced the power of the internet,” Cohen added.
He said security and law enforcement professionals have been slow to adapt to these changes.
After Sunday’s incident, Republicans were quick to call for increased security measures for the former president.
Other factors have combined to drive up the intensity of the moment: the emergence and surprising political strength of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to lead a national ticket, after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid; the compressed election calendar resulting from Harris’ late entry into the race; the pileup of criminal charges that Trump has battled for a year; and election meddling by Iran (through hacking) and Russia (through disinformation).
Though every recent election cycle has featured some of these challenges, especially foreign interference, rarely has there been a moment when they’ve all collided at once — requiring the Secret Service to weigh a daunting blend of foreign and domestic threats.
John Sandweg, a partner at Nixon Peabody and former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called the 2024 cycle “an unprecedented time, at least in modern history, in terms of the demands that are on their resources.”
Election season is always challenging for the Secret Service because agents must protect people who are barnstorming the country — so while they guard Trump on his golf course, they must also plan ahead for rallies, campaign stops, and other appearances in unfamiliar venues that raise unique security concerns. The failures that allowed one would-be assassin’s bullet to strike Trump’s ear at a July rally in Butler, Pa., have been a constant reminder that the vaunted agency can still simply screw up.
Ryan Williams, a former aide to Mitt Romney who worked on his presidential bids, said in an interview that the violence directed toward Trump is like nothing he’s seen in his lifetime and that he fears the attempts on the former president’s life could inspire copycat shooters.
“We could potentially see that now in politics,” Williams said. “It’s scary because you can’t protect everybody in politics. There are hundreds of congressmen and senators and high-profile people — it’s just not possible to secure them all if this is what’s going to happen.”
Law enforcement agencies are also operating in an environment of deep distrust, stoked by Trump’s longtime attacks on the FBI and Justice Department amid the deluge of investigations and indictments he’s faced in recent years.
Some Republicans, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), called for the feds to stay out of the investigation into Sunday’s incident, saying instead that Florida authorities — under the leadership of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — should be the ones digging into the latest apparent attempt on Trump’s life. DeSantis obliged, announcing that Florida would do its own probe. But the criminal case against the suspect, identified as Ryan Routh, is a federal case being handled by the Justice Department.
Republicans have also renewed claims that Trump is receiving insufficient protection from the Secret Service, despite Trump’s own praise of the agency for its handling of the latest incident. Biden, for his part, denounced the attack and said he had directed that the Secret Service provide “every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”
Trump is expected to move forward with all campaign events previously scheduled this week, including stops in Michigan, New York, Washington, D.C. and North Carolina between Tuesday and Saturday. He was scheduled to receive a briefing from the acting director of the Secret Service on Monday afternoon in Palm Beach.
While Trump has railed for years against the Justice Department and the FBI as an ominous “deep state,” he has not criticized the Secret Service (which is a component of the Department of Homeland Security) or local law enforcement agencies. In public and private conversations after Sunday’s incident, Trump reiterated his support for the Secret Service and local sheriff’s office, while seeking to project an image of strength and resolve about continuing his campaign activities.
Questions remain about whether, if Trump were the sitting president, the roads surrounding the golf course would have been closed while he was playing on Sunday. But aides say that there had been a noticeable uptick in Secret Service security measures since the Butler shooting: a larger motorcade, stricter protocols for those flying on Trump’s plane and increased emergency medical staff traveling with him.
The Butler shooting is still the subject of intense scrutiny— both for how a lone shooter was able to position himself to get a clear shot at Trump despite obvious signs of danger minutes before the attack, and for the shooter’s motive, which remains a mystery two months later.
“I think there’s a hatred in our politics that wasn’t there before. The political rhetoric is sharper and more hateful today,” said Gordon Heddell, a retired assistant director at the Secret Service, who spent 28 years at the agency.
“Social media sites play a pivotal role in their capacity to initiate and further lies and conspiracy theories. Advanced technologies make it easier for an assassin to operate. The availability of high-powered military-style weapons and the ability to move about the country freely; and before you know it, the challenges facing the Secret Service have gone way up,” he added.
The proliferation of social media, in particular, has exacerbated challenges. They’ve allowed foreign adversaries to cloak subversive activity through anonymous accounts that amplify divisive messages and cultural conflicts; they allow disinformation to dilute reality and conspiracy theories to take root. And social media platforms have struggled to provide open forums for debate while combating violent rhetoric.
Already, Iran has been eyed as the culprit behind a hack-and-leak effort that penetrated the Trump campaign.
Cohen said the Secret Service is a leader in analyzing people’s behavior to predict if they pose a threat to protectees. But, he added, federal law enforcement officials need to face fewer constraints in viewing and analyzing public social media posts. It’s a complex policy issue, he said, given constitutional and legal protections that Americans enjoy. But intelligence and law enforcement personnel need to be able to do more.
“Sadly, what all too often is the case is that we fail to recognize the warning signs, we fail to respond rapidly to an emerging threat, and the outcome is very often much more tragic,” Cohen said. “Law enforcement needs the technical capabilities and the authorities to review online content associated with threat actors more broadly than they are doing today.”
Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.
A bipartisan House task force was already investigating the July assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump. Sunday’s attack may have lawmakers expanding their probe.
Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the chair and top Democrat on the House task force, have requested a briefing for the panel with the Secret Service this week over what authorities have deemed another “attempted assassination” that occurred at Trump’s golf club in Florida. Shots were fired near Trump, who was unharmed, and a suspect is in custody.
“The Task Force is monitoring this attempted assassination of former President Trump in West Palm Beach this afternoon. We have requested a briefing with the U.S. Secret Service about what happened and how security responded,” Kelly and Crow said in a joint statement, vowing to “share updates as we learn more.”
The House task force was created earlier this year to investigate the assassination attempt against Trump at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Part of the group’s goal is to identify failures leading up to that incident and prevent similar attacks in the future. Members met just days ago with acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. as part of that investigation.
The joint statement is an early sign that the House panel could be expanding its scope to also probe the Sunday incident. The group is already under a tight timeframe; under a resolution that passed the House unanimously earlier this year, they have until mid-December to issue its findings and legislative recommendations.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a member of the task force, wrote on X that he expects the “Secret Service to brief us this week,” adding that the July 13 shooting “was not an isolated incident that we can take our time investigating as domestic and foreign threats are ongoing.” A task force spokesperson confirmed that committee leaders were also requesting that the briefing occur this week.
Some congressional leaders disclosed Sunday that they had already been briefed after the apparent assassination attempt. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was briefed by Rowe, the Democratic leader said in a statement.
“I applaud the Secret Service for their quick response to ensure former President Trump’s safety,” Schumer said. “There is no place in this country for political violence of any kind. The perpetrator must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Other lawmakers revived demands for increased security for Trump — echoing calls that they made in the wake of the July 13 shooting. Congressional investigators have raised questions about Trump’s security detail as part of their ongoing inquiries.
“Given the escalating threats, I’m calling on President Biden to issue President Trump the same security levels afforded to a sitting president to ensure his safety,” Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) wrote on X.
Democrats didn’t make the same demands, but expressed concern for the former president Sunday. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted on X: “Political violence has no place in a democratic society.”
Ursula Perano and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.